The three day event was hosted by Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne - the world’s no.1 hospitality school according to the QS World University rankings - with this year’s theme being ‘the Scope of Hospitality’. Students got to enjoy several networking opportunities with students and professionals from across the globe, plus engaging panel discussions and inspiring keynote speakers. Some of the keynote speakers at the event included Martijn Brouwer, General Manager of Astronaut Experience and Hospitality for Virgin Galactic, and Olivier Bracard, co-founder & CEO at Hosco.

The summit concluded with a consultancy challenge provided by world-leading hospitality group Accor, which sees twelve cross-university student teams compete against each other.

This year’s challenge was won by a team including Matthew, who studies International Hospitality Management. He summarised his winning experience at the event by saying: “I had a fantastic time at Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne for the Young Hoteliers Summit and I was extremely proud to represent Oxford Brookes in the contest. It was a great thrill just to compete and, of course, brilliant to have won the overall competition.

“I thoroughly enjoyed meeting fellow hospitality management students and professionals from around the globe and I left the event with both new friends and connections from all over the world. I’d like to take the opportunity to thank Oxford Brookes with a particular mention to Dr Nathan Zhang & Dr Grzegorz Kapuscinski for their support.”

Dr Grzegorz Kapuscinski, Senior Lecturer in Hospitality and Tourism Management, supported Matthew throughout the process. He summed up the event, saying: “The 10th edition of Young Hoteliers Summit (YHS) was a great success. In terms of both education and networking, it provided great value to our students.

“The central point of every YHS is a student competition focused on a contemporary industry issue. This year's challenge from Accor was to find a solution to a gap between consumer data (e.g. product reviews, social media content) and front line employees' service quality. The team impressed the panel and delegates with a creative and focused response to the brief. Matthew clearly made a strong contribution and played an important role in the pitch delivery as well as handling of questions from the panel.”

Cookie statement

Our websites use cookies (session, persistent, third party, advertising and performance) so they function correctly, to help us improve them and for targeted advertising. To find out more and learn how to disable these cookies, please see our cookies policy.